Tunable Chern insulator with shaken optical lattices

Abstract

Driven optical lattices permit the engineering of effective dynamics with well-controllable tunneling properties. We describe the realization of a tunable a Chern insulator by driving particles on a shaken hexagonal lattice with optimally designed polychromatic driving forces. Its implementation does not require shallow lattices, which favors the study of strongly-correlated phases with non-trivial topology.